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Nazir Jairazbhoy
Laurel Sprague
PS 1010
2 May 2016
My Eastern Market Experience
During my second semester with the Wayne State honors college, I worked with my team
on a semester long project that involved the problem of economic development within the city of
Detroit. In the past few decades, the economy of Detroit has suffered greatly falling victim to
bankruptcy, a factor in the citys decline. This fall has led to high levels of unemployment and
highly concentrated areas of blight. To understand economics first hand, our team worked with
Nirvana Tea, an emergent small business in the Eastern Market district.
Working with Nirvana Tea has not only developed my skill set as a professional, but more
importantly opened my eyes to the opportunities that Detroit has to offer. When my team and I
first sat down to talk with Anieka, a representative from the Eastern Market, and Alecha, the
CEO of Nirvana Tea, we learned about incubation systems within the few community kitchens
that the market owned. They pitched the market as a stepping-stone, one that can develop and
jump to the next tier as a business. This system took me by surprise. I always thought of the
market as the final step for small businesses to establish themselves in, not as a system to
temporarily mature in. However, in retrospect, this structure encourages further growth for these
companies and allows them to reach potentials not found within the scope of the Eastern Market.

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After working one semester with Nirvana Tea and with the Eastern Market, I do not plan
to continue work on the issue of economic development in the upcoming semester for a few
reasons. First, the issue is too enormous to utilize a small direct action plan. Economic issues
need to be solved through policy reformation and industrial expansion, an approach further
explained in the final paper my team compiled. From our experience, we realized that working
with small businesses, in addition to being full-time university students, is a very inefficient
process. Requirements such as training take time, time not available during the course of a
rigorous academic schedule. It would be much more valuable for students to concentrate their
efforts within the governmental sphere, discussing policy changes and university projects with
local city council officials. My team unanimously agreed that direct action can be beneficial
when dealing with problems such as poverty and homelessness, but structural modifications are
integral to long term economic stability. Collaborating with my group has been a learning
experience. Fortunately, we worked cohesively and accomplished as much as we could with the
issue we were given. In doing so, we learned a few valuable lessons about group work.
Delegation of duties is essential to exceptional work. Appointing responsibilities creates a
sense of accountability with each team member and it allows the group to efficiently evaluate the
productivity of each member. This also allows each person to focus on the tasks that he or she
has been given, allowing for concerted efforts. In opposition to this, we found that it is
sometimes difficult to express your individual ideas within a group atmosphere. Communication
is vital to any group work success, and this barrier can lead to problems within the group and lost
ideas. Individuality is as important as collaboration, and it cannot be completely compromised.
I have grown as not only a person, but as a professional from this project. As a future
engineer, group work is essential to my field. The team skills I built from this experience made

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me more personable and amicable. These skills have developed over the semester and, keeping
my mind open, will only continue to mature in the coming years.